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TOP STORIES
President Trump on Tuesday warned Iran that any
attack on "anything American" would be met
with "great and overwhelming force" after Iranian
officials slammed new U.S. sanctions as permanently closing the path
to diplomacy amid a spike in tensions in the Persian Gulf.
Iran's leadership "doesn't understand the words 'nice'
or 'compassion,' they never have," Trump said in a
series of tweets. "Sadly, the thing they do understand is
Strength and Power," he said.
President Trump and President Hassan Rouhani of Iran
shifted back to a sharply confrontational footing on Tuesday, trading
accusations while U.S. officials and international leaders worked
toward expected talks aimed at defusing the conflict at a global
summit at the end of the week. Mr. Rouhani denounced new U.S.
sanctions targeting the assets of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei
and several top military commanders, calling them "outrageous
and stupid" and saying the move closed the door on diplomacy and
threatened global stability.
Iran will speed up enrichment of uranium after a
deadline given to European countries to prevent this ends on
Thursday, the spokesman for Iran's Atomic Energy Organization said on
Wednesday, according to the IRIB news agency. "The deadline
of the Atomic Energy Organization for passing the production of
enriched uranium from the 300 kilogram border will end
tomorrow," the organization's spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said.
"With the end of this deadline, the speed of enrichment will
speed up."
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
Iran will never pursue a nuclear weapon, Foreign
Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Tuesday, according to the IRIB
news agency. He pointed to the past use of nuclear weapons by
the United States and to recent comments by U.S. President Donald Trump
that he had called off a military strike on Iran because it would
have killed 150 people. "You were really worried about 150
people? How many people have you killed with a nuclear weapon? How
many generations have you wiped out with these weapons?" Zarif
said.
Iran will take new steps to reduce its commitments under
its nuclear deal with world powers on July 7, the Secretary of the
Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, said on Tuesday,
according to the Fars news agency. Shamkhani said European
signatories to the nuclear deal had not done enough to save it,
Shamkhani said. The 2015 deal requires Iran to curb its nuclear
program in return for the lifting of sanctions.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC
NEWS
The United States will continue with its maximum
pressure campaign against Iran until Tehran changes its behavior, and
will look for ways to impose even more sanctions, U.S. disarmament
ambassador Robert Wood told Reuters on Tuesday. "We will
look to see what more we can do on sanctions," Wood said as he
left the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, the world's main
nuclear negotiating forum, where he had traded sharp accusations with
an Iranian diplomat.
With the U.S. already sanctioning almost 1,000 Iranian
entities, President Donald Trump had limited choices when he
opted to impose new penalties to punish Iran's downing of a U.S.
Navy drone in the Persian Gulf last week. In the event, he went big,
directly targeting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, among other
officials. Through his position, Khamenei, 79, oversees extensive
holdings in Iran.
Israel's ambassador to the United Nations said Tuesday
that the Iranians are "panicking" in the face of
increased sanctions, dismissing the newest rhetoric coming
from the regime. A spokesman for Iran's Foreign
Ministry said in a tweet Tuesday that new U.S. sanctions
that target Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other Iranian
officials permanently end any chance of diplomacy between the countries.
Iranian crude exports have dropped so far in June to
300,000 barrels per day (bpd) or less after the United States
tightened the screw on Tehran's main source of income, industry
sources said and tanker data showed, deepening global supply losses.
The United States reimposed sanctions on Iran in November after
pulling out of a 2015 nuclear accord between Tehran and six world
powers. Aiming to cut Iran's sales to zero, Washington in May ended
sanctions waivers to importers of Iranian oil.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
A horribly familiar description of the Iranian regime's
persecution of Christians and other minorities emerged from a U.S.
State Department report on religious freedom published Friday.
"In Iran, the regime's crackdown on Baha'is, Christians and others
continues to shock the conscience," Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo said. The U.S. has classified the Islamic Republic as a
"Country of Concern" since 1999, because its regime
violates religious freedom as defined by the U.S. International Religious
Freedom Act (1998).
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
If you're keeping score at home on the Trump foreign
policy, let me try to put it in a nutshell: The president has engaged
America in a grand struggle to reshape the modern behavior of two of
the world's oldest civilizations - Persia and China - at the same
time. Pressing both to change is not crazy. What's crazy is the
decision to undertake such a huge endeavor without tightly defined
goals, without allies to achieve those goals, without a strong and
coherent national security team and without a plan on how to sync up
all of President Trump's competing foreign policy objectives.
Iran said that the wreckage of an American drone shot
down last week was found four miles inside its territorial
waters, in one of its most detailed accounts of an incident that
brought the two countries to the brink of war. "After the
shooting down of the drone, initial actions were taken and its location
was identified," Brigadier General Majid Fakhri, the head of the
Iranian Armed Forces' Geographical Organization, was cited as saying
by the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported. "The drone was
definitely in the waters of Iran."
The U.S. and Iran are back where they were in 2012, a
time when their foreign ministers still spoke by megaphone rather
than telephone and Washington was trying to force Tehran to the
nuclear negotiating table by inflicting as much economic pain as
possible. But although applying "maximum pressure'' on Iran
appeared to work in 2012 -- resulting three years later in a
controversial nuclear deal between Iran and major world powers -- so
much else has changed that the trick may prove difficult to repeat.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to attack
Iran in retaliation for any strikes by Tehran "on anything
American," after Iran said new U.S. sanctions precluded any
diplomacy and called the White House actions "mentally
retarded." "Iran's very ignorant and insulting
statement, put out today, only shows that they do not understand
reality. Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with
great and overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean
obliteration," Trump said in a Twitter post.
Iran is not looking for war with America, its President
Hassan Rouhani told French President Emmanuel Macron in a phone call
on Tuesday, according to the Iranian Students' News Agency
(ISNA). But Rouhani told Macron that if the United States
violates Iran's territorial space again, as Iranian officials
maintain a U.S. drone did last week, it would be confronted.
"If the Americans want to violate the waters or airspace of Iran
again, Iran's armed forces have a duty to confront them and they will
have a decisive clash," Rouhani said.
The offer by the United States to negotiate with Iran is
a deception, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on
Wednesday in remarks published on his official website. U.S.
President Donald Trump has said he is willing to hold talks with the
Islamic Republic. "Negotiations are a deception for what
they want. A weapon is in your hands and they don't dare come close.
They say drop the weapon so I can do whatever I want with you. This
is negotiation," Khamenei said.
The United States would not dare violate Iranian soil,
the head of the Revolutionary Guards' aerospace division said on
Wednesday, according to the semi-official Mehr news agency.
Tensions have spiked between Iran and the United States after the Islamic
Republic shot down a U.S. drone they claim was flying over their
territorial waters last Thursday. Washington says the drone was in
international airspace.
Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Tuesday
he hoped to recruit support from NATO allies this week for U.S.
efforts to deter conflict with Iran and "open the door to
diplomacy," as he made his first trip as Pentagon chief.
"Express with us the concern, outrage ... with regard to Iran's
activities in the region. That would be a good first step,"
Esper said, when asked during his flight to Brussels what he wanted
to see from allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Top American and Iranian officials are continuing to
fire verbal warning shots at each other while insisting they want to
avoid war. "Whatever they want to do, I'm ready," President
Donald Trump said in the Oval Office on Tuesday afternoon. Asked by a
reporter what would be his exit strategy if war with Iran occurs,
Trump replied: "You're not going to need an exit strategy. I
don't need exit strategies."
MILITARY/INTELLIGENCE MATTERS & PROXY WARS
Iran's ministry of roads and urban development has
announced that Islamic Republic Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has
ordered 25 military bases to be moved out of cities. The website of
the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development has reported that the
military bases will receive alternative venues and the current
properties they occupy will be used for urban development.
CONGRESS & IRAN
With tensions escalating in the Middle East, Congress is
emboldening Iran by sending the wrong message about Yemen. Last week
the Senate voted to halt military sales to Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates. Earlier this year, President Trump was forced
to veto a congressional resolution aimed at ending U.S. assistance to
the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. Congress evidently can't separate
its response to the killing of Jamal Khashoggi from the threats posed
by the Houthis, Iranians and terrorists in Yemen.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
on Tuesday said he's willing to vote on a controversial amendment
that would require Congress to approve any military action against
Iran, but warned colleagues it could signal disunity in Washington to
a foreign adversary. McConnell said he's open to voting on a
bipartisan amendment sponsored by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.)
and Tom Udall (D-N.M.) that would block funding for
military action against Iran without prior congressional approval.
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
Hosting an extraordinary meeting on Tuesday of the
Russian, American and Israeli national security advisers, Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel pressed for ridding Syria of
all foreign forces, in particular Iranians and their proxies across
Israel's northern frontier. With the eight-year Syrian civil war
winding down, Mr. Netanyahu said, "I believe that there is a
wider basis for cooperation between the three of us than many
believe."
Russia pushed back against U.S. and Israeli attempts to
isolate Iran at a rare three-way meeting of their national security
chiefs designed to bridge disagreements over the Iranian presence in
Syria. Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, speaking
in Jerusalem on Tuesday, also said Israeli airstrikes on Syria were
"undesirable" and overdone. Israel and the U.S. want
Russia, whose military is backing Syrian government fighters, to
force Iran and its proxies to leave Syria as its eight-year civil war
winds down.
GULF STATES, YEMEN & IRAN
Saudi Arabia's air defences intercepted another drone
launched by the Houthis towards a residential area in Khamis Mushait
on Tuesday night, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported. The
spokesperson of the Saudi-led coalition Colonel Turki Al Maliki said
that the Houthis were "trying to target civilian facilities and
civilian objects in desperate and repeated attempts." The latest
strike comes after an attack by the Houthis on the Abha airport
earlier this week killed one person and wounded 21 others.
IRAQ & IRAN
Under no circumstances will Iraq allow the United States
to use its bases in Iraq to launch an attack on neighboring Iran,
Iraq's President Barham Salih told CNN. "We do not want our
territory to be a staging post for any hostile action against any of
our neighbors, including Iran," Salih said in an interview with
CNN's Christiane Amanpour in London on Tuesday. "This
is definitely not part of the agreement between the Iraqi government
and the United States."
CYBERWARFARE
Cyber pros are looking to history for guidance as they
brace for retaliation following a U.S. cyberattack against Iran's
military command and control systems last week. Iran has been one of
the United States' most consistent digital foes during the past
decade. It's also among the most nettlesome, with hackers targeting a
broad swath of victims ranging from banks and hospitals to
universities and government agencies.
Signaling restraint, President Trump opted not
to escalate the ongoing crisis with Iran by ordering precision
airstrikes that would have resulted in civilian casualties. The
discussion of potential responses to Iran's aggression, however,
presents a false choice between conflict that results in
death and backing down completely. Instead, the United States chose
to disrupt Iranian military targets with two distinct covert
cyber operations.
The U.S. launched a major cyberattack against an Iranian
proxy group in the days following the nation's downing of a U.S.
drone it says entered Iranian airspace, according to CNN. The U.S.
military conducted the attack against Kata'ib Hezbollah, an
Iran-backed Shia militia with forces in Iraq and Syria, CNN reported,
citing two U.S. officials with knowledge of the activity. The
cyberattack targeted the group's networked communications, according
to the officials, neither of whom would comment on how successful it
was.
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